1978 -1993: Ocean Safety Officer II & III,
City & County of Honolulu.
* Provided services to
insure the safety of the public at various beaches throughout
O'ahu; oversaw training and development of staff;
District Supervisor responsible for all district operations,
personal, scheduling and payroll, equipment, training,
and public safety (Areas worked - Sunset, Pipeline, Waimea
Bay, Makapu'u, Sandy Beach, Kailua Beach, Waikiki,
etc.)

"It's
a blood sacrifice," Tom Pohaku Stone says, his torn
and blistered hands proving his point as he pulls tight another
crucial knot in the thin, rough coconut-fiber lashing of
the papa holua. "You bleed when you make the sled,
and you bleed when you ride it."

Since
1994, Pohaku has been teaching kids about holua through a
variety of Hawaiian cultural and educational groups, like
this summer youth group from the Mohala ka 'Ike program at
Maui Community College.

Tom "Pohaku" Stone, a legendary
native Hawaiian surfer and waterman, has been on a life
long journey in search of his cultural heritage. Starting
in the ocean surfing as a young boy, Pohaku grew up in
a world of contradiction. Part of his life was surrounded
by beauty and pride, surfing in the paradise where he was
born, while another part was surrounded by a world of frustration,
where his native culture was cast aside as backwards and
ignorant. Through his career as a pro surfer Pohaku often
battled this contradiction, always searching for clarity
and unity between his pride as a waterman and what he deeply
felt should be his pride as a Hawaiian.

It has been through education that Pohaku has been able to find clarity. Using
his love of he'e nalu (surfing) and his culture as a focal point Pohaku has
spent the last ten years at the University of Hawaii , gaining his masters
degree in Pacific Island Studies, specializing in ancient Hawaiian sports.
He is credited with single handedly revitalizing the sport of he'e holua (Hawaiian
sledding), a centuries old extreme sport, and for the past several years he
has been sharing his knowledge and his aloha as a teacher and craftsman, instructing
students in the arts of sled building and ancient surf board carving.

Through this balance of riding, teaching, and craftsmanship,
Pohaku has found peace within himself and a sense of pride
in his culture that can never be broken. It is this peace
and pride that is put into every papa holua and papa he'e
nalu he crafts, making these works of art truly "He
mea Kanaka Maoli - Native Made."